🍽️ Fire-Bowl Barbecue

Liangshan Yi-style charcoal grill.

Fire-Bowl Barbecue is a distinctive grilling style of the Liangshan Yi area around Xichang, southern Sichuan. Charcoal burns in the center of a metal bowl, a grill rack rings it, and skewers of ingredients roast around the fire, with small pork, beef and mutton, potatoes and wild mushrooms being typical. Roasted until charred and fragrant, the skewers are dusted with cumin, chili powder and salt, the meat crisp outside, tender inside, smoky from the charcoal. Yi hospitality in Liangshan is generous, and fire-bowl barbecuing means many people sitting around the basin, roasting, drinking and talking in a lively mood. Compared with ordinary street barbecue, it emphasizes shared around-the-fire cooking and the pure taste of charcoal, with roasted miniature fragrant pig, crisp skin and tender meat, the favorite. It is a calling card of Xichang's nightlife, and many visitors come to the Qionghai shore specifically for this basin of grilled meat.